


Feint

by Arya_Greenleaf



Series: Single Sentence Prompts [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Poison, Rescue Missions, Reunions, Surprise Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 13:20:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8015554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new Federation, old tricks, and equal failures draw the Ren into dealing with matters otherwise left to the Order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feint

**Author's Note:**

> [pinkottericorn](http://pinkottericorn.tumblr.com/) over on tumblr wanted a kylux story for this prompt:
> 
> **“You fainted…straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”**
> 
> Also very much an important part of the request: _A kiss between Phasma and Avaah with Phasma almost comically bent to kiss her? Or Avaah enlacing Phasma's neck and being lifted off the ground?_
> 
> I nodded yes so hard I made my head hurt. For those not in the know, Avaah is my Knight of Ren OC and has a thing with Phasma. She appears in several of my other Kylux stories and you can find some amazing fan art of her right over [here on my SW-sideblog.](http://avaahren.tumblr.com/tagged/avaah-ren)
> 
> [NOW WITH AMAZING ART BY AMAZING JUNE. GO LOOK GO LOOK.](http://avaahren.tumblr.com/post/153710145454/doodlingthingies-heeeeeeey-guess-who-got-a-new)

Hux narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips as he listened to the man at the other end of the conference table speak. The droning, bee-like sound that persisted behind the man’s stammering Standard was grating on Hux’s last nerve.

The representatives of the New Trade Federation were treading on very thin ice as far as he was concerned. There were delegates from several systems, some important, some insignificant. There were beings involved in just about every major trade and transportation scheme in the galaxy. The earlier incarnation of their organization had caused a great ruckus and promptly failed—this one was well on its way to some of the same.

Did they really think that they’d sway the First Order?

Hux supposed some among their numbers might be useful to him, but to gain them at the expense of his sanity dealing with this Federation was far from worth their usefulness. He put a hand up, silencing the man who was still speaking. “Enough.” He laid his palm very calmly against the table, the coolness of it evident even though the leather of his glove. “You are wasting my time and your own.”

“General, if you would simply _consider—_ “

“And by wasting _my_ time you are wasting the _Order’s_ time. I assure you all that is simply not something that you wish to do.”

Hux cast a dangerous look around the room. The Federation members mumbled amongst themselves at a nervous pitch. Hux looked to Phasma at his right, impassive in her helmet and impossibly straight-backed. Not for the first time, Hux had a distinct impression that he should have been less insistent that she remain at his side—that her purpose was better served elsewhere rather than there at the table; nothing more than a pure intimidation tactic, the muscle, the heavy.

Hux closed his eyes for a moment, his heart fluttering wildly in his chest. He cleared his throat and reached for the glass of water sitting yet-untouched in front of him. “Excuse me.”

“Something wrong, General?”

“Simply parched.” He took a long, slow sip. “Tedium has that effect on me.”

Hux glanced at Phasma once again, suddenly overcome with heat, sweat prickling at his hairline. Phasma shifted, almost imperceptibly, in her seat.

“Can we get down to real business now?” Hux put his glass down purposefully. “Before…before— _ahem_ —bef—“

 

* * *

 

 

Avaah’s presence was an assault on Kylo’s senses. He could feel her rushing through the corridors of the _Finalizer_ , robes flying out behind her like some over-grown bird of prey. He pushed her away from his consciousness, trying to re-center himself in meditation. The Knight beside him shifted, their own presence imposing like a parent scolding a child. Kylo huffed and rolled his shoulders and settled down.

“Kylo!”

He did his best to ignore Avaah as she burst into the common room that the Ren had taken for themselves.

“Kylo Ren!”

His eyes flew open, mind torn away from the task at hand. “What do you want?” he snapped. “Can you not see plainly that we are at meditation?”

“Fuck your meditation. Something is wrong.”

“Master Ren, you allow yourself to be spoken to in such a way?” The Monk, never without his mask, spoke in slow syllables outside of the Galactic Standard, a glottal sound evident behind each one.

Kylo stiffened, keeping his attention on Avaah’s apparent distress. “I’m sure it is nothing you cannot handle. Are you not the Heavy?” Avaah scoffed and blew a stringy strand of forest green hair away from her forehead. Her cheeks burned as blue as when she exerted herself in training. “Tell me, Avaah Ren, have you been walking freely with your face bared?” Avaah visibly clenched and unclenched her jaw, disliking the scrutiny. “Do you fancy yourself above our customs? You who so often claim superiority—trained from childhood in the ways of the Dark and the traditions of the Old—“

“Kylo Ren there is something wrong and if you cannot _feel_ it then I am concerned for us all.” He squinted at her, pursing his lips. “Go ahead,” she crossed her arms, waiting. “Reach out to him. Tell me you do not sense it as well.”

Heat and color flared through Kylo’s cheeks at the current of displeasure from the others in the room at the reference to his connection to the General. “Hold your tongue.”

“I will _not._ ”

Kylo’s chest tightened as he reached out, searching for Hux’s nearly begrudging presence in the Force and feeling a sense of eminent danger. “Do not be foolish. The Ren have no obligations or connections honor beyond that to our kin and Supr—“

“I will not sit back and wait for news of Pha—“ Avaah stopped herself, hyperaware of the attention of the others. “I will not wait for news of your fellow commanders’ deaths or harming to act. I will do so now and alone if I must.” She paused, jaw rolling beneath skin as she kept herself from saying something out loud. “Their demise would hinder the Supreme Leader’s goals.”

Kylo got to his feet. “You will do no such thing. _I_ am the Master of the Knights of Ren. _I_ am a co-commander of this ship.” He took a deep breath, securing his helmet over his head and plucking his gloves from where they were tucked into his belt. “I will retrieve the General.”

There was a buzzing of dissent through the Force, quiet disagreement that none of their gathered number would actually voice aloud. Kylo picked Avaah’s helmet up from the table in the middle of the seating area as he passed it and thrust it at her chest when he neared her and swept toward the door.

A flick of a button opened the channel in the comm unit in his helmet. “I would have my shuttle ready for departure immediately along with a small squad of Stormtroopers, FN Division.”

“ _Yes, sir_ ,” came the answer from the flight control desk.

Avaah took two steps to keep up with every one of Kylo’s strides. “We may not reach them in time.”

“We will have to utilize hyperspace immediately.”

Avaah grunted in response and shoved her helmet down over her head.

 

* * *

 

 

“Is something wrong, General?” A Neimoidian who had yet to speak otherwise repeated the question.

Hux leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table, unable to control his response to the pain in his head and chest any longer, his heart beating so rapidly he thought it might explode. “What have you done?” he wheezed. The feeling of something wet rolling down from his nose startled him. A fat, bright drop of blood hit the surface of the table, contracting into a perfect round against the smooth surface.

The Neimodian presented him with some semblance of a smile.

Phasma pushed her chair back abruptly, hand on her blaster. She drew it, stabilizing her elbow against the arm of her chair, and fired on the Chiss seated across from herself and then rapidly turned the next round on what appeared to be their twin beside them.

Chaos broke out as Hux drew his own blaster with shaking hands. Federation representatives bolted from the table and raced for the door, falling over each other in their mad-dash for the exit. Several escaped before a stray blaster bolt hit the access panel, the door slamming shut with an abrupt clank and catching the hem of the long coat of the Rodian who’d just stepped over the threshold.

The skirmish that ensued was messy. The remaining representatives who were in possession of them drew their own weapons. Though seemingly unaffected by whatever toxin was becoming an increasing impediment to Hux and Phasma’s aim and well-being, they were clearly not much more than weapons for show. Dangerous shots hit walls and ceiling and floor. They singed the cushioned seats that Hux and Phasma had crouched behind in a defensive position.

The air felt thick. Hux blinked rapidly, trying to clear the cloudy film from his eyes as he tried to steady his aim and fire on the Federation representative leaping across the table. A sudden commotion outside the door distracted him. Phasma, unsteady and fighting submission to her own ailment, flung out a hand that landed heavily on Hux’s shoulder. His aim pulled up and the representative gasped, falling ass-over-head in a crumpled heap of silk and twitching head-tails, a blackened wound where his left eye once was.

“Stay down,” Hux rasped as someone pounded on the door. Phasma nodded, shifting onto one knee and readying herself. Hux hauled himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the edge of the table, supporting the butt of his blaster between shoulder and chin. “I can’t believe I’m going to die this way.”

Phasma let out a breathy, laugh-like sound. “At least we’ll take them with us, the barvy pfassking bastards.”

Hux smiled, an ugly expression of curled lips and teeth, and waited.

The door flew open, the damaged access panel sparking and throwing off smoke in protest. A hooded figure filled the doorway, shoulders rounded forward, ready to launch into attack. The crackling, red plasma blade of the saber the figure was holding retracted as it stepped forward. “General—“

Hux straightened and took several halting steps forward. He dropped his blaster with a clatter on the floor and reached out. “Ren?”

“General, you—“

Hux felt as though he were falling through the floor. His blood pressure fluctuated wildly, his skin suddenly very cold. He swayed, trying to reach out to Ren—the edge of the table—anything to keep from falling—and the world went dark.

 

* * *

 

 

Avaah flung a hand out, the Troopers following them halting immediately as they butted up against a wall of Force. “Stop.”

She looked to Kylo, jerking her chin toward the door to the conference room, someone’s lost coat caught beneath the edge. Tendrils of smoky air slinked around the frame of the door. Kylo reached out, searching for some kind of insight. “Dioxis. Keep them back.”

The Troopers needn’t be told twice. They fanned out, blasters trained on a pair of Federation representatives cowering in the corner of the antechamber and the corridor beyond that they had approached through.

“There is distress.” Kylo nodded, he could feel it.

“I’ll enter first. I cannot tell if the General or the Captain are alert.” He refused to say what he actually meant. It would only confirm that they had not reached their destination in time.

Kylo waved his hand, opening the door with ease, a shower of sparks from the access panel on the outside accompanying the motion. He stepped through the threshold, immediately aware that most in the room were dead or dying—blaster wounds too serious to tend to.

Hux stood, his chest heaving and breath audibly rattling, face a mottled mask of red and white. His blaster was supported awkwardly in the crook of his shoulder, as if he hadn’t the strength to hold it properly. “General—“

Relief and disbelief washed over his face. When he dropped his blaster, Kylo knew concern was necessary. The General stumbled forward, reaching out. “Ren?”

“General, you—“ _need to be still. Allow us to assist you. You’re in danger. We have to leave this place._

Hux swayed on his feet, color washing completely from his face. He reached awkwardly to catch himself and pitched forward.

Kylo caught him, the Force wrapping around him like a safety net, and hooked his arms under Hux’s. “Captain?” There was a retching, coughing sound and the audible shift of armor. “Can you stand?” With difficulty, Phasma rose to her feet, leaning heavily on the back of the nearest chair.

“Kylo Ren.”

“Avaah is here. Just outside.” Phasma shuddered and relaxed her grip on her blaster. She took a hesitant step forward and seemed to decide better. “Allow me to remove the General and I will return for you.” She nodded.

Kylo half-dragged Hux from the room, his heels catching on the doorway as they moved. “Avaah.” Her attention snapped forward, away from the pair of cowering Federation representatives. “The Captain is inside.” He lowered Hux to the floor as gently as he could. The Dioxis had begun to leech in earnest into the antechamber. “Can you contain the toxin?”

“Yes.”

“You,” a trooped turned in response. “FN-2187. Take these back to the shuttle and see that they are secured. I will attend the General.”

“Yes, sir.” The Trooper tugged another of his own into action and prodded the now prisoners into action. With binders on their wrists they were guided down the corridor the group of them had come through.

Kylo returned to the conference room, finding Phasma several feet further ahead from where he’d left her. “Come,” he offered his shoulder and helped her to sling her arm across, his arm around her waist. “We need to get you out of here.” He looked her up and down. “How in the galaxy are you still standing?”

Any persisting trepidation about taking advantage of Kylo’s assistance dissipated. She made a raspy, chuckling sound and reached for the door frame when they came to it.

“Phasma!” Avaah barked.

Kylo could feel the wall of Force holding the Dioxis fumes back as they stepped through it. He could also feel the tiniest spark of a smile forming somewhere inside the chrome armor. He bent to gather the General’s prone form into his arms, Phasma neatly deposited between two troopers for support.

Kylo glanced down, Hux’s head settling into the hollow of his collarbone and his body heavy in Kylo’s arms. He wouldn’t be happy when he woke. On the shuttle, Kylo lowered Hux onto the floor and balled his cloak beneath his head. Avaah fussed as the Troopers helped Phasma settle into a seat and buckle in. She yanked the chrome helmet, tarnished from taking light blaster fire, off of Phasma’s head, and pushed damp blonde hair away from her face. Phasma’s eyes were unfocused, her head lolled to the side.

“Phasma. Phasma! Stay awake. _Stay awake_.”

Kylo could feel the panic in Avaah rise as she babbled something in what he knew was her home planet’s language but had never bothered to learn for himself. Kylo breathed out slowly, trying to feel Hux’s weak presence, trying to detect what damage the Dioxis might have already done.

“Master Ren?”

“FN-2187.”

The Trooper held out a plastoid injector, the shuttle’s medkit opened and in slight disarray on a seat on the opposite wall. “For the General—a temporary antidote. Standard in all medkits. Blocks neuro-receptors.” Kylo seized it from his hand and inspected the packaging. “In the neck, sir.”

Kylo nodded and pulled the General’s collar aside to plunge the injector into the tender, white flesh. Within several tense heartbeats, Hux’s eyes popped open in an expression of fear and shock. He sucked in breath like he’d just surfaced from very deep water. His hands fluttered over his body, patting his hip as if searching for his blaster, eyes rolling wildly around the room.

“Ren?” His hands settled on his flank.

“Yes.” Kylo schooled his breathing into steadiness.

Hux pulled his hand away from his side, something darker shining on the surface of the leather glove and pooling in the creases of his uniform. “I think I’ve been hit.”

Hux let out a heavy breath and relaxed onto the floor, eyes fluttering shut.

“Fuck.” Kylo glanced over his shoulder, Phasma making similar sounds now that she’d received an injection as well. Avaah pushed past him, leaving the Troopers to tend to their Captain.

“Move. Back to the _Finalizer._ ”

Kylo caught up to her as they stepped into the cockpit, a rough hand on her shoulder. “Speak to me that way again and I will jettison _her_ from the airlock.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

The tense ride back to the _Finalizer_ was accompanied by frequent updates on the health of their cargo. The prisoners were secured, the commanders stable for the moment. FN-2187 had managed to stop the heaviest bleeding from the blaster wound in Hux’s flank. Another small dose of antidote had been administered to each of them and the effects had been entirely sedating. Notified well in advance of their approach, the Chief Surgeon was ready in the hangar to transport the Captain and General to medbay.

Only half expected and less hoped for, the Ren were waiting as well.

Avaah’s energy became fiery with anger and anxiety when the Rogue blocked her path. “No, child.”

“Do not call me _child_ , I—“

“Have relished in our Master and Supreme Leader’s favor. But now you must ignore your base instincts and allow the Order to tend to their own. If the Trooper lives, then it is what the Force wills to be so.”

Avaah whipped around, “Kylo Ren, _you_ of all people must—“

“He is right. That connection is of distraction, not strength. Our strength is here.” He gestured to the others. “Retrieving my co-commanders was a matter of duty, as it should be. Supreme Leader will be pleased but it is time to move on, the task is finished.”

Avaah ripped her helmet from her head, cheeks flushed and hair a sweaty mess. “Hypocrite!” Helmet gripped tightly under the crook of her arm she stormed toward the lifts. “Move.” A wave of her hand pushed technicians and pilots alike out of her way and sent equipment clattering to the floor.

“She must learn.”

Kylo nodded and shoved his own desire to bolt for medbay down into the deepest reaches of himself, understanding perfectly what had been left unsaid. He watched as the pair of prisoners were dragged from the shuttle by a group of Troopers. Their distress was a pleasant thrill, a rippling in the Force that satisfied in a small way the part of him that wanted to lash out. Kylo made his way to the lift and then the bridge, taking a place near the wide viewport, anticipating some kind of retaliation from the Republic, or at the very least the Federation itself.

Hours passed.

Kylo resisted the need to reach out, tempered by Avaah’s bright-burning Force presence somewhere in the bowels of the ship and the firm, scolding presence of the rest of the Ren. Hux could wait. Kylo could wait for some update from medbay, his place on the bridge an opportune spot to be among the first to receive any new information.

Someone behind him cleared their throat. Kylo turned, faced with a severe looking woman who wore the bun on her head far too tightly twisted. “Unamo.”

“Master Ren. Lieutenant Mitaka has asked if you would be so inclined as to handle interrogation of the Federation prisoners.”

“I assume he is in the detention block now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And have you heard anything of the General and the Captain?”

“No sir, the Chief Surgeon is only releasing information in regards to their status to command. I would assume that includes yourself, sir.”

Kylo nodded in a curt manner. “I will be there presently. Please inform the Lieutenant.” He paused, Unamo raising her brows expectantly. “I wouldn’t want him jumping out of his skin when I turn up in the interrogation room.”

Unamo pressed her lips together in a tight, amused line and tapped something into her datapad. “Of course, sir.”

The first of the prisoners was soft, pliant, and gave up information so quickly that Kylo didn’t need to use any pressure. His physical presence seemed to be enough to unlock it all. None of the political codswallop interested him. Mitaka could take that information and apply it where necessary, Kylo didn’t care.

“None of that,” he said as he circled the interrogation chair, “tells me how you all were unaffected by the Dioxis. What was it? An antidote of some kind?” He leaned in close, the front of his mask pressing against the prisoner’s cheek. They shook their head and squeezed their eyes shut. “Then how? The atmosphere in that room was so thick with it you could grab a handful.” Kylo took a step back, appraising. Hand shooting out, he grabbed the prisoner’s nose between thumb and forefinger. “What’s this?”

The prisoner shrieked, the sound almost funny, muffled as it was. Kylo pinched, extracting the device that caught his eye, a glint of durasteel under the septum. The thing had a filter on either side, small enough to fit within the nostrils, out of sight unless the observer was intimately close.

“A breathing apparatus? Really? I assume you were all wearing them.” The prisoner nodded awkwardly, their nose still clutched between Kylo’s fingers. “How did you administer the Dioxis? All at once?”

“Over time! Slowly! So as to not overwhelm ourselves--and give us time to filter it out if the General was compliant.” They sucked in air when Kylo let go. “Please! Please just let me go! I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Everything?”

“Yes! Yes, please!”

Kylo shrugged. “Then you’ve outlived your usefulness. There’s a refuse jettison scheduled for twenty-one-hundred. I hope you don’t mind the cold.”

The prisoner shouted and cried after Kylo as he left the room, begging for clemency.

 

* * *

 

 

Hux felt as though his lungs and throat and nose had been scrubbed down with metal-wool. The cannula pumping humidified oxygen into him only served as an irritant. His body was sore, joints tight, head throbbing. His initial attempt at speech failed, mouth too dry, and tongue stuck against the back of his teeth.

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a speeder.”

“You look it.”

The smooth, modulated voice surprised Hux. He reached up and rubbed the exhausted film from his eyes. He tried to sit up, too stiff to accomplish much more than an awkward scoot against the thin pillow behind his head.

“Ren?”

“Of course.”

“You rescued us. You and… the small one.”

“And several of the FN division. You and Captain Phasma owe 2187 your lives.”

“Excuse me?”

“I hadn’t the slightest clue what was in the shuttle’s kit. I’ve never used it. He located the appropriate medication.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Each word sounded slightly raspier than the last. Hux struggled to swallow around the cottony feeling in his mouth.

“Drink.” Ren approached the bedside console, tipping a glass of water in Hux’s direction.

Hux tried to raise himself up on his elbow to no avail. “I can’t.”

Ren made an annoyed sound and sat on the edge of the narrow mattress. He hooked an arm under Hux’s, guiding him up and playing with a switch on the rail to raise the head of the bed. Hux took the glass he offered again with trembling hands, hoping his thanks was evident enough in his expression when Ren supported the bottom of the glass with gentle fingers.

“You’ve been… asleep. For the better part of several cycles.”

Realization dawned on him, “Phasma. Where is Phasma? What is her status?”

“Phasma will be fine.” Hux nodded and gulped from the glass again, the cool wetness of it better than the finest wines from Naboo.

“What in pfassking ten hells happened, Ren? The last thing I remember… some Neimoidian trying to goad me. I don’t think it worked.”

“You were poisoned.”

“The water. They served us water.”

“No, Dioxis. Pumped very slowly into the room. You wouldn’t have noticed it until it had reached near lethal levels—but, Hux, the air was so thick. You didn’t see it? The air was full of it.”

Hux shook his head. “I didn’t. I suppose I was more effected than I felt I was. But how did any of them expect to survive? They were so _smug_.”

Ren’s hand disappeared beneath his outer robe for a moment. He held it out again, palm open, a metal device there. “Breathing apparatus. Extremely efficient filters.”

Hux curled his lip up in distaste, picking up the device and examining it. He remembered the Chiss twins—at the time he’d only thought it had been a questionable fashion choice, matching pierced septums to go along with their heavily adorned ears and fingers.

“I suppose I have to give them credit for a well-planned assassination.”

Hux shifted, trying to slide further up against the head of the bed, wincing at the twinge in his side. The slight pain sent a wave a nausea rolling through his core. He slapped a hand across his mouth, eyes wide with panic. The waste bin slid across the room of its own accord and Ren snatched it up off of the floor by the rim, swinging it around toward Hux. The vile sweet stuff that came up with a cough that lanced through Hux’s chest coated his tongue and filled the room with a saccharine aroma.

“Stars!” Hux swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “You threw me in a damned bacta tank, didn’t you?”

“Not personally.” Hux made and ugly face and pushed the waste bin away. Ren set it down on the floor and it slid back across the room away from them. “For a standard day or so.” Ren looked away, his hands clenched and unclenched. “They weren’t entirely sure you’d wake up. Your lungs were saturated with Dioxis, it was beginning to penetrate the blood-brain barrier—I—Phasma. She didn’t get hit as bad. The filter in her helmet. It… The Troopers’ helmets aren’t designed to filter out toxins but it was enough to lessen the blow.” He was speaking too fast, words tripping over one another.

“Ren, you—“

“It was quite entertaining to see the both of you floating like that. Matched set. I felt like some greedy Imperial collector.”

Hux snorted, amused, wincing at the rawness of his throat. “I kriffing hate bacta.”

Ren filled his chest too far and let the breath out in a _whoosh_ that made the vocal modulator crackle with static. “You fainted…” He paused, clenched and unclenched his fists again. “Straight into my arms.” Ren cleared his throat and looked away. “You know, if you wanted my attention, you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”

Ren reached up, fingers hovering over the release on the side of his mask. “Don’t.” Hux put a hand out, touching his arm gingerly. “Not here.”

They sat in silence for a long moment. Ren stood, crossing the room to the datapanel that ticked off counts of Hux’s vital functions.

“That… the little one. The woman? She—“

“Avaah.”

“Yes.”

“I am aware of her and Phasma. Fraternizing.”

“Disapprove?”

“I’d be a hypocrite if I did.” Hux managed to shift at last, slightly more comfortable. “I am a lot of things according to the Republic, but that’s not one of them.”

“What of it?”

“The Captain, if she’s awake, I’m sure will be anxious to see her.”

“Avaah is not currently aboard.”

“Oh?”

“The Ren are set in their ways.” His shoulders trembled with silent laughter for a moment. “Not unlike the Jedi or the Sith in that.”

“ _Ren_ —“

“I’m not preaching.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “They can’t dictate what I do with my body or my time, I rank above them. I am in our Supreme Leader’s favor. But Avaah is their equal. Snoke chose to send them away on a task and in spite of her protests she had to leave.”

“You could have allowed her to stay.”

“Yes. It’s likely that had I insisted, Snoke would not have objected.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because she felt it first.”

“Felt what?”

“The danger. I had no idea.”

“You’re jealous.”

Ren was silent.

 

* * *

 

 

“Ren.”

Hux lounged in bed in the most begrudging of relaxed poses. Phasma was back to light duty, overseeing training exercises but not cleared to be in the field. Hux was resentful—allowed to recuperate in his own quarters but forbidden from doing much else other than attending his most basic duties on the bridge by the Chief Surgeon. She was a woman not to be trifled with, threatening him with another round in the bacta tank and sedation if he didn’t take the time to fully heal from the Dioxis poisoning. She’d spoken in that frighteningly calm tone that mothers often use with naughty children, going over the vital reports and reminding Hux how close he’d come to oblivion.

“Ren.”

He didn’t answer, not even an acknowledgement that he’d heard Hux with a shrug of an alabaster shoulder. Hux mused for a moment that the smattering of scar tissue and moles across his right shoulder blade looked as if they were a continuation of the star formation just beyond the viewport.

“ _Ren_.”

“What?”

“You’re restless.” Hux could tell as much from the absent way he'd been fucking, like it was a duty more than anything else. “It’s the others. I don’t think you’ve ever been parted for such a long stretch. Not since you’ve been aboard, at least.”

“A standard week. That’s not much.”

“Still. You miss them, don’t you.”

Ren turned, a wrecked look on his face. “They are a part of me, no matter any… disagreement. They brought me into their fold when I was at my lowest—when my own blood had betrayed me, lied to me—when I’d become the laughing stock of the galaxy. I would burn worlds with them—for them. They have formed me in ways that no mother ever could. I think that this separation is meant as punishment for myself, not only a lesson in control for Avaah.”

Hux waited, feeling there was more to be said.

“I’m a hypocrite, Hux. Here I am, doing exactly what I’d been warned against, what I pretend to be above—what I allowed one of my own to be effectively disciplined for.”

Hux took a deep breath and let it out. The tragedy of _Ben Solo_ and the complicated workings of the Knights’ inner world not something he had any desire to discuss. “Come back to bed.”

“The Surgeon is going to have my hide for overworking you.” Ren’s expression softened, his hair falling across his eyes. He was easily distracted from the unpleasant, infinitely mercurial of mood.

Hux laughed and tucked his arm behind his head. “I just want to be allowed to smoke again.”

“They’re coming back.” Ren said as he draped himself over Hux, sucking an earlobe between his lips. “Soon.”

“Well then, I won’t have to put up with your moping for much longer.” Hux drew his lip up, mouth dropping open as Ren grazed his teeth over Hux’s jawline. “Turn over. I want to have your hide again before the Surgeon gets it.”

 

* * *

 

 

Avaah Ren stood near the exit ramp of the shuttle, eyes glued to the panel beside the door, waiting for the indicator to flash that they’d safely entered the hangar and were hooked in safely by the technicians.

“Avaah.”

She ignored the Knight who came up behind her, a hand on her shoulder.

“Little sister.”

“I am older than you.”

“But much more petite.”

“Take your hand off of me.”

“You cannot be so involved with the Trooper, Avaah Ren. They are… cannon fodder. You know this. They are both fleeting and infinite, no matter what the General says.”

“Leave me to my own business.”

“The Supreme Leader warned you.”

“The Supreme Leader is not here.”

The Knight sighed and lowered the chrome grid of his mask over his face. “Then you will learn the hard way, like the Sith and the Jedi—failures because of the connections they forged outside of the Force and the desires they could not school.”

“So be it.” She stepped off the ramp, helmet stubbornly under her arm and face bare. “I will be in my quarters.”

She avoided the temptation to drop into the medbay, avoided the temptation to reach out and feel for Phasma’s presence, pushed the sense far from herself. She wouldn’t be scolded again.

She was the _Heavy_.

She broke men like straw between her fingers.

She would not be treated like a child who refused to learn a lesson—the stove is hot, the blade is sharp, the stairs are steep.

It was no one’s business but her own who she brought into her bed and to whose bed she was invited.

The indicator light flashed near the door and a low tone sounded. Avaah scrolled purposefully through the backlog of meaningless holojournal reports on her datapad, making herself dizzy with it. “I will _not_ come to meditation!”

“I’ve no wish to meditate.”

Avaah perked up at the voice that came though the comm, thinner and quieter but overwhelmingly familiar. She dropped the datapad and bolted across the small room, slapping the door release frantically.

Captain Phasma’s armored form filled the doorframe. Avaah’s hearts pounded against her ribs like a pair of frantic Convorees.

“You’re well?”

“I’d like to thank you. For rescuing the General and me.” She took and audible breath under the helmet. “I should have been more aware of the danger. I don’t know how—“

“Phasma.” Avaah’s cheeks flushed blue. “I—“

The Captain doffed her helmet, tucking it under her arm. “Avaah Ren.” She ran a hand through hair just slightly on the damp side, pushing it away from her face. “I—“

Avaah rose up on her toes, gripping Phasma’s shoulders to pull her down. Phasma gasped in an expression of open-mouthed surprise, body nearly doubled over as Avaah drew her in over the threshold of the door and pressed blue-tinged lips to pink. The helmet hit the floor with a clatter, rolling awkwardly across the corridor.

“Phasma.” Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes bright. “I’m sorry I left.” Avaah’s eyes tracked toward her lips, shining and wet. She surged forward again, yanking the taller woman down further and wrapping her arms around Phasma’s neck and shoulders. She kissed her urgently, pressing in with the Force and feeling the soreness in Phasma’s joints and chest and the ache in her head. “Phas- _mah!_ ”

Strong hands reached down and gripped the backs of her thighs. Her perspective skewed wildly as her feet left the ground. Avaah wrapped her legs around the shapely waist, edges of the armored chest plate pinching at her bare calves. She sighed, eyes fluttering closed at the pressure of teeth on her bottom lip

“I didn’t think you were coming back.”

Avaah studied the wounded, confused expression on Phasma’s face. She stroked her fingertips over the curve of a cheekbone. “It hurts to talk?”

“Yes. A bit. The Dio—“

“I know.”

Avaah caught her lips again, blonde hair gripped in her fingers. Phasma reached out blindly, slapping at the access panel as she stepped fully through the door, making it _whissh_ closed abruptly behind herself. Phasma crossed the room easily with a few strides, depositing Avaah in her bunk with a bounce. She sat up, fingers working to assist Phasma in freeing herself from the high-polished chestplate, letting the pieces clatter on the floor. A knee on the edge of the mattress, Phasma ducked into the bunk, looming over Avaah.

“Kylo Ren—“

Avaah silenced her, mouth-to-mouth, tongue sliding over Phasma’s teeth in a way that made the Captain’s posture melt. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“But, General Hu—“

Avaah kissed her again. “Or him.” She moved back in the bunk, creating as much space as she could manage.

Phasma flushed, dipping her head to press a light kiss to Avaah’s neck. “I’m glad you came back.”

Avaah wrapped her limbs around the big, warm body over her. “I’m glad you’re alive.”


End file.
